Systems and methods for performance summary citations

ABSTRACT

Some embodiments of the present invention include a method for creating, via a first user interface, at least one link in a performance summary to link to supporting information of an employee&#39;s work associated with the performance summary. The performance summary including the at least one link is then displayed via the first user interface. The method then detects, via the first user interface, when the at least one link in the performance summary is selected. Responsive to the at least one link being selected, the supporting information of the employee&#39;s work associated with the performance summary is displayed via the first user interface.

CLAIM OF PRIORITY

This application claims priority to Provisional U.S. Provisional PatentApplication No. 61/904,690, filed on Nov. 15, 2013, entitled “System andMethod for Performance Summary Citations,” which is incorporated hereinby reference in its entirety and for all purposes.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains materialwhich is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has noobjection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent documentor the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and TrademarkOffice patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyrightrights whatsoever.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure relates generally to data processing, and morespecifically relates to processing performance summary.

BACKGROUND

The subject matter discussed in the background section should not beassumed to be prior art merely as a result of its mention in thebackground section. Similarly, a problem mentioned in the backgroundsection or associated with the subject matter of the background sectionshould not be assumed to have been previously recognized in the priorart. The subject matter in the background section merely representsdifferent approaches, which in and of themselves may also be inventions.

The following detailed description is made with reference to thetechnology disclosed. Preferred implementations are described toillustrate the technology disclosed, not to limit its scope, which isdefined by the claims. Those of ordinary skill in the art will recognizea variety of equivalent variations on the description.

Performance summaries are often boring, bland, and merely text based.Statements included in the performance summary of a person often rely onmemory and subjective feelings instead of objective data and proof.

BRIEF SUMMARY

For some embodiments, methods and systems for processing performancesummaries for employees includes creating, via a user interface, atleast one link in a performance summary to supporting information ofemployee's work associated with the performance summary, displaying, viathe user interface, the performance summary, detecting, via the userinterface, the at least one link in the performance summary beingselected, and displaying, via the user interface, the supportinginformation of the employee's work associated with the performancesummary. Other aspects and advantages of the present invention can beseen on review of the drawings, the detailed description and the claims,which follow.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The included drawings are for illustrative purposes and serve only toprovide examples of possible structures and process steps for thedisclosed techniques. These drawings in no way limit any changes in formand detail that may be made to embodiments by one skilled in the artwithout departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosure.

FIG. 1 shows a diagram of an example computer system 102 that may beused with some embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 2 shows a diagram of an example network environment 200 that may beused with some embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 3 shows an example performance summary user interface 300 thatincludes multiple statements that have been configured to be selectablelinks, in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 4 shows an expanded performance summary user interface 400 that maybe used to present the supporting information, performed in accordancewith some embodiments.

FIG. 5A shows an example of a feedback user interface that may be usedto solicit feedbacks, performed in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 5B shows an example of a feedback preview user interface, performedin accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 6 shows examples of the supporting information in graphical format,performed in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 7 shows a flowchart of an example process for enabling one or morestatements or phrases in a performance summary to be a selectable link,performed in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 8A shows a system diagram 800 illustrating architectural componentsof an applicable environment, in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 8B shows a system diagram further illustrating architecturalcomponents of an applicable environment, in accordance with someembodiments.

FIG. 9 shows a system diagram 910 illustrating the architecture of amultitenant database environment, in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 10 shows a system diagram 910 further illustrating the architectureof a multitenant database environment, in accordance with someembodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Applications of systems and methods according to one or more embodimentsare described in this section. These examples are being provided solelyto add context and aid in the understanding of the present disclosure.It will thus be apparent to one skilled in the art that the techniquesdescribed herein may be practiced without some or all of these specificdetails. In other instances, well known process steps have not beendescribed in detail in order to avoid unnecessarily obscuring thepresent disclosure. Other applications are possible, such that thefollowing examples should not be taken as definitive or limiting eitherin scope or setting.

In the following detailed description, references are made to theaccompanying drawings, which form a part of the description and in whichare shown, by way of illustration, specific embodiments. Although theseembodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable one skilled inthe art to practice the disclosure, it is understood that these examplesare not limiting, such that other embodiments may be used and changesmay be made without departing from the spirit and scope of thedisclosure.

As used herein, the term “multi-tenant database system” refers to thosesystems in which various elements of hardware and software of thedatabase system may be shared by one or more customers. For example, agiven application server may simultaneously process requests for a greatnumber of customers, and a given database table may store rows for apotentially much greater number of customers.

The described subject matter may be implemented in the context of anycomputer-implemented system, such as a software-based system, a databasesystem, a multi-tenant environment, or the like. Moreover, the describedsubject matter may be implemented in connection with two or moreseparate and distinct computer-implemented systems that cooperate andcommunicate with one another. One or more embodiments may be implementedin numerous ways, including as a process, an apparatus, a system, adevice, a method, a computer readable medium such as a computer readablestorage medium containing computer readable instructions or computerprogram code, or as a computer program product comprising a computerusable medium having a computer readable program code embodied therein.

The disclosed embodiments may include methods of processing performancesummaries for employees and may include creating, via a user interface,at least one link in a performance summary to supporting information ofthe employee's work associated with the performance summary, displaying,via the user interface, the performance summary, detecting, via the userinterface, the at least one link in the performance summary beingselected, and displaying, via the user interface, the supportinginformation of the employee's work associated with the performancesummary.

The disclosed embodiments may include systems to process performancesummaries for employees. The systems may include a processor and one ormore stored sequences of instructions which, when executed by theprocessor, cause the processor to create, via a user interface, at leastone link in a performance summary to supporting information of theemployee's work associated with the performance summary, display, viathe user interface, the performance summary, detect via the userinterface when the at least one link in the performance summary isselected, and display, via the user interface, the supportinginformation of the employee's work associated with the performancesummary.

The disclosed embodiments may include a machine-readable medium carryingone or more sequences of instructions for processing performancesummaries, which instructions, when executed by one or more processors,cause the one or more processors to create, via a user interface, atleast one link in a performance summary to supporting information of theemployee's work associated with the performance summary, display, viathe user interface, the performance summary, detect, via the userinterface, when the at least one link in the performance summary isselected, and display via the user interface the supporting informationof the employee's work associated with the performance summary.

The disclosed embodiments may be related to processing performancesummary for use in a computer-implemented system. The described subjectmatter may be implemented in the context of any computer-implementedsystem, such as a software-based system, a database system, amulti-tenant environment, or the like. Moreover, the described subjectmatter may be implemented in connection with two or more separate anddistinct computer-implemented systems that cooperate and communicatewith one another. One or more implementations may be implemented innumerous ways, including as a process, an apparatus, a system, a device,a method, a computer readable medium such as a computer readable storagemedium containing computer readable instructions or computer programcode, or as a computer program product comprising a computer usablemedium having a computer readable program code embodied therein.

FIG. 1 is a diagram of an example computer system that may be used withsome embodiments of the present invention. The computing system 102 maybe used to access information from a database (e.g., employee database)that may store performance summaries of employees along with supportinginformation that may be related to the employees' work. The supportinginformation may also be referred to as the citation to the employees'work associated with the employees' performance summary.

The computer system 102 is only one example of a suitable computingsystem, such as a mobile computing system, and is not intended tosuggest any limitation as to the scope of use or functionality of thedesign. Neither should the computing system 102 be interpreted as havingany dependency or requirement relating to any one or combination ofcomponents illustrated. The design is operational with numerous othergeneral purpose or special purpose computing systems. Examples ofwell-known computing systems, environments, and/or configurations thatmay be suitable for use with the design include, but are not limited to,personal computers, server computers, hand-held or laptop devices,multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based systems, set top boxes,programmable consumer electronics, mini-computers, mainframe computers,distributed computing environments that include any of the above systemsor devices, and the like. For example, the computing system 102 may beimplemented as a mobile computing system such as one that is configuredto run with an operating system (e.g., iOS) developed by Apple Inc. ofCupertino, Calif. or an operating system (e.g., Android) that isdeveloped by Google Inc. of Mountain View, Calif.

Some embodiments of the present invention may be described in thegeneral context of computing system executable instructions, such asprogram modules, being executed by a computer. Generally, programmodules include routines, programs, objects, components, datastructures, etc. that performs particular tasks or implement particularabstract data types. Those skilled in the art can implement thedescription and/or figures herein as computer-executable instructions,which can be embodied on any form of computing machine readable mediadiscussed below.

Some embodiments of the present invention may also be practiced indistributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remoteprocessing devices that are linked through a communications network. Ina distributed computing environment, program modules may be located inboth local and remote computer storage media including memory storagedevices.

Referring to FIG. 1, the computing system 102 may include, but are notlimited to, a processing unit 120 having one or more processing cores, asystem memory 130, and a system bus 121 that couples various systemcomponents including the system memory 130 to the processing unit 120.The system bus 121 may be any of several types of bus structuresincluding a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, and alocal bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. By way ofexample, and not limitation, such architectures include IndustryStandard Architecture (ISA) bus, Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) bus,Enhanced ISA (EISA) bus, Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA)locale bus, and Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus also knownas Mezzanine bus.

The computing system 102 typically includes a variety of computerreadable media. Computer readable media can be any available media thatcan be accessed by computing system 102 and includes both volatile andnonvolatile media, removable and non-removable media. By way of example,and not limitation, computer readable media may store information suchas computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules orother data. Computer storage media include, but are not limited to, RAM,ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digitalversatile disks (DVD) or other optical disk storage, magnetic cassettes,magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices,or any other medium which can be used to store the desired informationand which can be accessed by computing system 102. Communication mediatypically embodies computer readable instructions, data structures, orprogram modules.

The system memory 130 may include computer storage media in the form ofvolatile and/or nonvolatile memory such as read only memory (ROM) 131and random access memory (RAM) 132. A basic input/output system (BIOS)133, containing the basic routines that help to transfer informationbetween elements within computing system 102, such as during start-up,is typically stored in ROM 131. RAM 132 typically contains data and/orprogram modules that are immediately accessible to and/or presentlybeing operated on by processing unit 120. By way of example, and notlimitation, FIG. 1 also illustrates operating system 134, applicationprograms 135, other program modules 136, and program data 137.

The computing system 102 may also include other removable/non-removablevolatile/nonvolatile computer storage media. By way of example only,FIG. 1 also illustrates a hard disk drive 141 that reads from or writesto non-removable, nonvolatile magnetic media, a magnetic disk drive 151that reads from or writes to a removable, nonvolatile magnetic disk 152,and an optical disk drive 155 that reads from or writes to a removable,nonvolatile optical disk 156 such as, for example, a CD ROM or otheroptical media. Other removable/non-removable, volatile/nonvolatilecomputer storage media that can be used in the exemplary operatingenvironment include, but are not limited to, USB drives and devices,magnetic tape cassettes, flash memory cards, digital versatile disks,digital video tape, solid state RAM, solid state ROM, and the like. Thehard disk drive 141 is typically connected to the system bus 121 througha non-removable memory interface such as interface 140, and magneticdisk drive 151 and optical disk drive 155 are typically connected to thesystem bus 121 by a removable memory interface, such as interface 150.

The drives and their associated computer storage media discussed aboveand illustrated in FIG. 1, provide storage of computer readableinstructions, data structures, program modules and other data for thecomputing system 102. In FIG. 1, for example, hard disk drive 141 isillustrated as storing operating system 144, application programs 145,other program modules 146, and program data 147. Note that thesecomponents can either be the same as or different from operating system134, application programs 135, other program modules 136, and programdata 137. The operating system 144, the application programs 145, theother program modules 146, and the program data 147 are given differentnumeric identification here to illustrate that, at a minimum, they aredifferent copies.

A user may enter commands and information into the computing system 102through input devices such as a keyboard 162, a microphone 163, and apointing device 161, such as a mouse, trackball or touch pad or touchscreen. Other input devices (not shown) may include a joystick, gamepad, scanner, or the like. These and other input devices are oftenconnected to the processing unit 120 through a user input interface 160that is coupled with the system bus 121, but may be connected by otherinterface and bus structures, such as a parallel port, game port or auniversal serial bus (USB). A monitor 191 or other type of displaydevice is also connected to the system bus 121 via an interface, such asa video interface 190. In addition to the monitor, computers may alsoinclude other peripheral output devices such as speakers 197 and printer196, which may be connected through an output peripheral interface 190.

The computing system 102 may operate in a networked environment usinglogical connections to one or more remote computers, such as a remotecomputer 180. The remote computer 180 may be a personal computer, ahand-held device, a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device orother common network node, and typically includes many or all of theelements described above relative to the computing system 102. Thelogical connections depicted in FIG. 1 include a local area network(LAN) 171 and a wide area network (WAN) 173, but may also include othernetworks. Such networking environments are commonplace in offices,enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets and the Internet.

When used in a LAN networking environment, the computing system 102 maybe connected to the LAN 171 through a network interface or adapter 170.When used in a WAN networking environment, the computing system 102typically includes a modem 172 or other means for establishingcommunications over the WAN 173, such as the Internet. The modem 172,which may be internal or external, may be connected to the system bus121 via the user-input interface 160, or other appropriate mechanism. Ina networked environment, program modules depicted relative to thecomputing system 102, or portions thereof, may be stored in a remotememory storage device. By way of example, and not limitation, FIG. 1illustrates remote application programs 185 as residing on remotecomputer 180. It will be appreciated that the network connections shownare exemplary and other means of establishing a communications linkbetween the computers may be used.

It should be noted that some embodiments of the present invention may becarried out on a computer system such as that described with respect toFIG. 1. However, some embodiments of the present invention may becarried out on a server, a computer devoted to message handling,handheld devices, or on a distributed system in which different portionsof the present design may be carried out on different parts of thedistributed computing system.

Another device that may be coupled with the system bus 121 is a powersupply such as a battery or a Direct Current (DC) power supply) andAlternating Current (AC) adapter circuit. The DC power supply may be abattery, a fuel cell, or similar DC power source needs to be rechargedon a periodic basis. The communication module (or modem) 172 may employa Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) to establish a wirelesscommunication channel. The communication module 172 may implement awireless networking standard such as Institute of Electrical andElectronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standard, IEEE std. 802.11-1999,published by IEEE in 1999.

Examples of mobile computing systems may be a laptop computer, a tabletcomputer, a Netbook, a smart phone, a personal digital assistant, orother similar device with on board processing power and wirelesscommunications ability that is powered by a Direct Current (DC) powersource that supplies DC voltage to the mobile computing system and thatis solely within the mobile computing system and needs to be rechargedon a periodic basis, such as a fuel cell or a battery.

FIG. 2 shows a diagram of an example network environment that may beused with some embodiments of the present invention. Network environment200 includes computing systems 205 and 210. One or more of the computingsystems 205 and 210 may be a mobile computing system. The computingsystems 205 and 210 may be connected to the network 250 via a cellularconnection or via a Wi-Fi router (not shown). The network 250 may be theInternet. The computing systems 205 and 210 may be coupled with one ormore server computing systems 255 and 260 via the network 250. A usermay use the computing system 205 and local application 208 (e.g.,browser) to connect to the server computing system 255 and log into theapplication 257 (e.g., a Salesforce.com® application) to performoperations (e.g., process a performance summary) that may includeauthoring and storing a performance summary into a database. Similarly,another user may use the computing system 210 and local application 215to connect to the server computing system 255 or 260 and log into theapplication 257 or 265 to generate the supporting information that canbe used with the performance summary. The supporting information may berelated to work performed by the employee whose performance is beingreviewed. The supporting information may be stored in the same databaseor in a different database that is used to store the performancesummary.

A performance summary may be generated by using the questioning andanswering format. A question may be presented using a multiple choiceformat or an open-ended format. In the open-ended format, the responsesmay be inserted into an input area. Some statements or phrases in theseresponses may be associated with supporting information. An employeethat is the subject of the performance summary may also have theopportunity to provide own feedback or self-evaluation.

FIG. 3 shows an example performance summary user interface that includesstatements that have been configured to be selectable links, inaccordance with some embodiments. Typically, a performance summary mayinclude statements that describe how an employee performed over acertain period. Each statement may correspond to a category that theemployee is measured by. For example, the category may be leadership,specific project, sales quota, etc. The performance summary userinterface 300 may present a performance summary with multiple statementsor phrases. At least one of these statements or phrases is configured asa selectable link. For example, the performance summary user interface300 may present a performance summary that includes three statements orphrases 305, 310 and 315. The statement or phrase 305 may correspond tohow the employee is viewed by the people he or she works with, thestatement or phrase 315 may correspond to how the employee performedwith respect to a given quota, and the statement or phrase 320 maycorrespond to how the employee performed with respect to the performanceof the employee's colleagues or peers. Each of the statements or phrases305, 310 and 315 may be configured as a selectable link such that, whenselected, an operation to display the relevant supporting informationmay execute.

FIG. 4 shows an expanded performance summary user interface that may beused to present the supporting information, performed in accordance withsome embodiments. The expanded performance summary user interface 400may include statements or phrases 305, 310 and 315. When the statementor phrase 305 in the performance summary user interface 300 is selected,an operation may execute to present the supporting information 405. Thedirectional arrow linking the statement or phrases 305 to the supportinginformation 405 is shown to convey the relationship between these twoentities. The supporting information 405 may be presented within a frameof the expanded performance summary user interface 400. Similarly, whenthe statement or phrase 310 or 315 is selected, an operation may executeto present the supporting information 410 or 415. The supportinginformation 405, 410 and 415 may be referred to as citation of therespective statements or phrases 305, 310 and 315. The supportinginformation 405, 410 and 415 may be presented in various formatsincluding one or more of texts, graphics, charts, reports, audio, etc.For example, the supporting information may include feedbacks from thecolleagues or peers of the employee whose performance is being reviewed.The supporting information may include “Thank you” notes, badges awardedby others in the same organizations, performance comparison information,future goals to achieve, actions to be taken, etc.

FIG. 5A shows an example of a feedback user interface that may be usedto solicit feedbacks, performed in accordance with some embodiments. Thefeedback user interface 500 may be used to solicit feedbacks from thefeedback providers. The feedback providers may be associated with theemployee whose performance is being reviewed. The feedback userinterface 500 may include a subject or question area 505 to solicit thefeedback, a feedback input area 510 to receive the feedback, and afeedback display area 512 to display the different feedbacks. Thefeedback providers may be the employee's colleagues or peers, customers,supervisors, people who work for the employee or anyone who may have afeedback that is relevant to the performance summary of the employee.The feedback area 512 is shown to include feedbacks 515, 520, 525 thathave previously been received.

The question 505 may be identified by the author or owner of theperformance summary by selecting a statement or a phrase in theperformance summary and causing the statement or the phrase to become aselectable link. For some embodiments, when a statement or phrase isselected (e.g., by highlighting the statement or the phrase) by theauthor, the feedback user interface 500 is presented. The author maythen enter information to describe the question 505. For example, thequestion may be “Please provide feedbacks about how John Doe helped youachieve your goals during the first quarter of 2014.” The author maythen select one or more feedback providers (e.g., by selecting an“invite peer review” option) to receive the feedbacks. The feedback userinterface 500 may include configurable settings that keep the feedbacks515, 520 and 525 confidential and not viewable by the other feedbackproviders and the employee. Alternatively, the configurable settings mayallow all of the feedbacks to be viewable by all of the feedbackproviders but not the employee. The feedbacks may include one or more oftextual information and graphical information.

FIG. 5B shows an example of a feedback preview user interface, performedin accordance with some embodiments. A feedback provider may useinformation from a source file 530 as the feedback. The feedbackprovider may highlight a text area 535 to be used as the feedback, andthen select the “paste” option 534 to cause the highlighted text area535 to be copied and pasted into the feedback preview user interface540. For some embodiments, the feedback preview user interface 540 maybecome visible as a pop-up frame or window when the “paste” option 534is selected. When the feedback provider is ready to submit theinformation in the feedback preview user interface 540, the “insert asanswer” (or “insert into answer”) option 550 may be selected. After thesubmission, the feedback may appear in the feedback area 512 shown inFIG. 5A. For some embodiments, when a first feedback is received in thefeedback area 512, the link to the supporting information from theperformance summary is active.

FIG. 6 shows examples of the supporting information in graphical format,performed in accordance with some embodiments. The author of theperformance summary or the feedback providers may have access tographical information that may be used as the supporting information.For example, the organization associated with the employee beingreviewed may store statistical data related to sales performance of itssale representatives. When the employee being reviewed is a salesrepresentative, the graphical supporting information may be used todisplay the opportunity information 625 showing actual sales vs. quota,the performance comparison information 630 showing how the employee'sperformance is measured against the performance of other salesrepresentative in the same team, and the historical performancecomparison information 635 showing how the employee's performance ismeasured against the performance of other sales representative in thesame team over a certain period. The graphical information may then bepresented inside a frame associated with the expanded performancesummary user interface 400 (shown in FIG. 4). It should be noted thatthe example supporting information described with FIGS. 5 and 6 aremeant to convey some of the possible type of supporting information thatmay be used with embodiments of the present invention. For example,other supporting information that may be used include metric informationsuch as percentage to quota and displayed in graphics, goal informationfor the employee to achieve and displayed as progress percentage, andthank you note displayed as a badge.

FIG. 7 shows a flowchart of an example process for enabling one or morestatements or phrases in a performance summary to be a selectable link,performed in accordance with some embodiments. The method 700 may beused to enable an author of a performance summary to support thestatements or phrases with feedbacks, charts, graphics, etc. to make theperformance summary more comprehensive for the employee as well as forthe author or anyone else who may have the need to review theperformance summary at a later time.

At block 705, at least one link is created in the performance summary tolink to the supporting information of the employee's work associatedwith the performance summary. An example is described with FIG. 5 wherea statement or a phrase in the performance summary is highlighted and afeedback interface is presented to receive the supporting information

At block 710, the performance summary with at least one link isdisplayed or presented to a user who is interested in reviewing theperformance summary. An example is described with FIG. 3 where theperformance summary user interface includes selectable links 305, 310and 315.

At block 715, a user's selection of a link in the performance summary isdetected. An example is described with FIG. 4 where a user may selectone of the links 305, 310 and 315 from the expanded performance summaryuser interface 400.

At block 720, responsive to the user selecting one of the links, thesupporting information is presented to the user. The supportinginformation may be related to the employee's work associated with theperformance summary. An example of the presentation of the supportinginformation is described with FIG. 4. It may be noted that although theflow chart of FIG. 7 shows the different operations in an order, some ofthe operations may be performed in a different order when their orderminimally affect the process of enabling the supporting information tobe presented based on selectable links in a performance summary.

FIG. 8A shows a system diagram 800 illustrating architectural componentsof an on-demand service environment, in accordance with someembodiments. A client machine located in the cloud 804 (or Internet) maycommunicate with the on-demand service environment via one or more edgerouters 808 and 812. The edge routers may communicate with one or morecore switches 820 and 824 via firewall 816. The core switches maycommunicate with a load balancer 828, which may distribute server loadover different pods, such as the pods 840 and 844. The pods 840 and 844,which may each include one or more servers and/or other computingresources, may perform data processing and other operations used toprovide on-demand services. Communication with the pods may be conductedvia pod switches 832 and 836. Components of the on-demand serviceenvironment may communicate with a database storage system 856 via adatabase firewall 848 and a database switch 852.

As shown in FIGS. 8A and 8B, accessing an on-demand service environmentmay involve communications transmitted among a variety of differenthardware and/or software components. Further, the on-demand serviceenvironment 800 is a simplified representation of an actual on-demandservice environment. For example, while only one or two devices of eachtype are shown in FIGS. 8A and 8B, some embodiments of an on-demandservice environment may include anywhere from one to many devices ofeach type. Also, the on-demand service environment need not include eachdevice shown in FIGS. 8A and 8B, or may include additional devices notshown in FIGS. 8A and 8B.

Moreover, one or more of the devices in the on-demand serviceenvironment 800 may be implemented on the same physical device or ondifferent hardware. Some devices may be implemented using hardware or acombination of hardware and software. Thus, terms such as “dataprocessing apparatus,” “machine,” “server” and “device” as used hereinare not limited to a single hardware device, but rather include anyhardware and software configured to provide the described functionality.

The cloud 804 is intended to refer to a data network or plurality ofdata networks, often including the Internet. Client machines located inthe cloud 804 may communicate with the on-demand service environment toaccess services provided by the on-demand service environment. Forexample, client machines may access the on-demand service environment toretrieve, store, edit, and/or process information.

In some embodiments, the edge routers 808 and 812 route packets betweenthe cloud 804 and other components of the on-demand service environment800. The edge routers 808 and 812 may employ the Border Gateway Protocol(BGP). The BGP is the core routing protocol of the Internet. The edgerouters 808 and 812 may maintain a table of IP networks or ‘prefixes’which designate network reachability among autonomous systems on theInternet.

In one or more embodiments, the firewall 816 may protect the innercomponents of the on-demand service environment 800 from Internettraffic. The firewall 816 may block, permit, or deny access to the innercomponents of the on-demand service environment 800 based upon a set ofrules and other criteria. The firewall 816 may act as one or more of apacket filter, an application gateway, a stateful filter, a proxyserver, or any other type of firewall.

In some embodiments, the core switches 820 and 824 are high-capacityswitches that transfer packets within the on-demand service environment800. The core switches 820 and 824 may be configured as network bridgesthat quickly route data between different components within theon-demand service environment. In some embodiments, the use of two ormore core switches 820 and 824 may provide redundancy and/or reducedlatency.

In some embodiments, the pods 840 and 844 may perform the core dataprocessing and service functions provided by the on-demand serviceenvironment. Each pod may include various types of hardware and/orsoftware computing resources. An example of the pod architecture isdiscussed in greater detail with reference to FIG. 8B.

In some embodiments, communication between the pods 840 and 844 may beconducted via the pod switches 832 and 836. The pod switches 832 and 836may facilitate communication between the pods 840 and 844 and clientmachines located in the cloud 804, for example via core switches 820 and824. Also, the pod switches 832 and 836 may facilitate communicationbetween the pods 840 and 844 and the database storage 856.

In some embodiments, the load balancer 828 may distribute workloadbetween the pods 840 and 844. Balancing the on-demand service requestsbetween the pods may assist in improving the use of resources,increasing throughput, reducing response times, and/or reducingoverhead. The load balancer 828 may include multilayer switches toanalyze and forward traffic.

In some embodiments, access to the database storage 856 may be guardedby a database firewall 848. The database firewall 848 may act as acomputer application firewall operating at the database applicationlayer of a protocol stack. The database firewall 848 may protect thedatabase storage 856 from application attacks such as structure querylanguage (SQL) injection, database rootkits, and unauthorizedinformation disclosure.

In some embodiments, the database firewall 848 may include a host usingone or more forms of reverse proxy services to proxy traffic beforepassing it to a gateway router. The database firewall 848 may inspectthe contents of database traffic and block certain content or databaserequests. The database firewall 848 may work on the SQL applicationlevel atop the TCP/IP stack, managing applications' connection to thedatabase or SQL management interfaces as well as intercepting andenforcing packets traveling to or from a database network or applicationinterface.

In some embodiments, communication with the database storage system 856may be conducted via the database switch 852. The multi-tenant databasesystem 856 may include more than one hardware and/or software componentsfor handling database queries. Accordingly, the database switch 852 maydirect database queries transmitted by other components of the on-demandservice environment (e.g., the pods 840 and 844) to the correctcomponents within the database storage system 856. In some embodiments,the database storage system 856 is an on-demand database system sharedby many different organizations. The on-demand database system mayemploy a multi-tenant approach, a virtualized approach, or any othertype of database approach. An on-demand database system is discussed ingreater detail with reference to FIGS. 9 and 10.

FIG. 8B shows a system diagram illustrating the architecture of the pod844, in accordance with one embodiment. The pod 844 may be used torender services to a user of the on-demand service environment 800. Insome embodiments, each pod may include a variety of servers and/or othersystems. The pod 844 includes one or more content batch servers 864,content search servers 868, query servers 872, file force servers 876,access control system (ACS) servers 880, batch servers 884, and appservers 888. Also, the pod 844 includes database instances 890, quickfile systems (QFS) 892, and indexers 894. In one or more embodiments,some or all communication between the servers in the pod 844 may betransmitted via the switch 836.

In some embodiments, the application servers 888 may include a hardwareand/or software framework dedicated to the execution of procedures(e.g., programs, routines, scripts) for supporting the construction ofapplications provided by the on-demand service environment 800 via thepod 844. Some such procedures may include operations for providing theservices described herein. The content batch servers 864 may requestsinternal to the pod. These requests may be long-running and/or not tiedto a particular customer. For example, the content batch servers 864 mayhandle requests related to log mining, cleanup work, and maintenancetasks.

The content search servers 868 may provide query and indexer functions.For example, the functions provided by the content search servers 868may allow users to search through content stored in the on-demandservice environment. The Fileforce servers 876 may manage requestsinformation stored in the Fileforce storage 878. The Fileforce storage878 may store information such as documents, images, and basic largeobjects (BLOBs). By managing requests for information using theFileforce servers 876, the image footprint on the database may bereduced.

The query servers 872 may be used to retrieve information from one ormore file systems. For example, the query system 872 may receiverequests for information from the app servers 888 and then transmitinformation queries to the NFS 896 located outside the pod. The pod 844may share a database instance 890 configured as a multi-tenantenvironment in which different organizations share access to the samedatabase. Additionally, services rendered by the pod 844 may requirevarious hardware and/or software resources. In some embodiments, the ACSservers 880 may control access to data, hardware resources, or softwareresources.

In some embodiments, the batch servers 884 may process batch jobs, whichare used to run tasks at specified times. Thus, the batch servers 884may transmit instructions to other servers, such as the app servers 888,to trigger the batch jobs. In some embodiments, the QFS 892 may be anopen source file system available from Sun Microsystems® of Santa Clara,Calif. The QFS may serve as a rapid-access file system for storing andaccessing information available within the pod 844. The QFS 892 maysupport some volume management capabilities, allowing many disks to begrouped together into a file system. File system metadata can be kept ona separate set of disks, which may be useful for streaming applicationswhere long disk seeks cannot be tolerated. Thus, the QFS system maycommunicate with one or more content search servers 868 and/or indexers894 to identify, retrieve, move, and/or update data stored in thenetwork file systems 896 and/or other storage systems.

In some embodiments, one or more query servers 872 may communicate withthe NFS 896 to retrieve and/or update information stored outside of thepod 844. The NFS 896 may allow servers located in the pod 844 to accessinformation to access files over a network in a manner similar to howlocal storage is accessed. In some embodiments, queries from the queryservers 822 may be transmitted to the NFS 896 via the load balancer 820,which may distribute resource requests over various resources availablein the on-demand service environment. The NFS 896 may also communicatewith the QFS 892 to update the information stored on the NFS 896 and/orto provide information to the QFS 892 for use by servers located withinthe pod 844.

In some embodiments, the pod may include one or more database instances890. The database instance 890 may transmit information to the QFS 892.When information is transmitted to the QFS, it may be available for useby servers within the pod 844 without requiring an additional databasecall. In some embodiments, database information may be transmitted tothe indexer 894. Indexer 894 may provide an index of informationavailable in the database 890 and/or QFS 892. The index information maybe provided to file force servers 876 and/or the QFS 892.

FIG. 9 shows a block diagram of an environment 910 wherein an on-demanddatabase service might be used, in accordance with some embodiments.Environment 910 includes an on-demand database service 916. User system912 may be any machine or system that is used by a user to access adatabase user system. For example, any of user systems 912 can be ahandheld computing system, a mobile phone, a laptop computer, a workstation, and/or a network of computing systems. As illustrated in FIGS.9 and 10, user systems 912 might interact via a network 914 with theon-demand database service 916.

An on-demand database service, such as system 916, is a database systemthat is made available to outside users that do not need to necessarilybe concerned with building and/or maintaining the database system, butinstead may be available for their use when the users need the databasesystem (e.g., on the demand of the users). Some on-demand databaseservices may store information from one or more tenants stored intotables of a common database image to form a multi-tenant database system(MTS). Accordingly, “on-demand database service 916” and “system 916”will be used interchangeably herein. A database image may include one ormore database objects. A relational database management system (RDBMS)or the equivalent may execute storage and retrieval of informationagainst the database object(s). Application platform 918 may be aframework that allows the applications of system 916 to run, such as thehardware and/or software, e.g., the operating system. In animplementation, on-demand database service 916 may include anapplication platform 918 that enables creation, managing and executingone or more applications developed by the provider of the on-demanddatabase service, users accessing the on-demand database service viauser systems 912, or third party application developers accessing theon-demand database service via user systems 912.

One arrangement for elements of system 916 is shown in FIG. 9, includinga network interface 920, application platform 918, tenant data storage922 for tenant data 923, system data storage 924 for system data 925accessible to system 916 and possibly multiple tenants, program code 926for implementing various functions of system 916, and a process space928 for executing MTS system processes and tenant-specific processes,such as running applications as part of an application hosting service.Additional processes that may execute on system 916 include databaseindexing processes.

The users of user systems 912 may differ in their respective capacities,and the capacity of a particular user system 912 might be entirelydetermined by permissions (permission levels) for the current user. Forexample, where a call center agent is using a particular user system 912to interact with system 916, the user system 912 has the capacitiesallotted to that call center agent. However, while an administrator isusing that user system to interact with system 916, that user system hasthe capacities allotted to that administrator. In systems with ahierarchical role model, users at one permission level may have accessto applications, data, and database information accessible by a lowerpermission level user, but may not have access to certain applications,database information, and data accessible by a user at a higherpermission level. Thus, different users may have different capabilitieswith regard to accessing and modifying application and databaseinformation, depending on a user's security or permission level.

Network 914 is any network or combination of networks of devices thatcommunicate with one another. For example, network 914 can be any one orany combination of a LAN (local area network), WAN (wide area network),telephone network, wireless network, point-to-point network, starnetwork, token ring network, hub network, or other appropriateconfiguration. As the most common type of computer network in currentuse is a TCP/IP (Transfer Control Protocol and Internet Protocol)network (e.g., the Internet), that network will be used in many of theexamples herein. However, it should be understood that the networks usedin some embodiments are not so limited, although TCP/IP is a frequentlyimplemented protocol.

User systems 912 might communicate with system 916 using TCP/IP and, ata higher network level, use other common Internet protocols tocommunicate, such as HTTP, FTP, AFS, WAP, etc. In an example where HTTPis used, user system 912 might include an HTTP client commonly referredto as a “browser” for sending and receiving HTTP messages to and from anHTTP server at system 916. Such an HTTP server might be implemented asthe sole network interface between system 916 and network 914, but othertechniques might be used as well or instead. In some embodiments, theinterface between system 916 and network 914 includes load sharingfunctionality, such as round-robin HTTP request distributors to balanceloads and distribute incoming HTTP requests evenly over a plurality ofservers. At least as for the users that are accessing that server, eachof the plurality of servers has access to the MTS' data; however, otheralternative configurations may be used instead.

In some embodiments, system 916, shown in FIG. 9, implements a web-basedcustomer relationship management (CRM) system. For example, in someembodiments, system 916 includes application servers configured toimplement and execute CRM software applications as well as providerelated data, code, forms, web pages and other information to and fromuser systems 912 and to store to, and retrieve from, a database systemrelated data, objects, and Webpage content. With a multi-tenant system,data for multiple tenants may be stored in the same physical databaseobject, however, tenant data typically is arranged so that data of onetenant is kept logically separate from that of other tenants so that onetenant does not have access to another tenant's data, unless such datais expressly shared. In certain embodiments, system 916 implementsapplications other than, or in addition to, a CRM application. Forexample, system 916 may provide tenant access to multiple hosted(standard and custom) applications. User (or third party developer)applications, which may or may not include CRM, may be supported by theapplication platform 918, which manages creation, storage of theapplications into one or more database objects and executing of theapplications in a virtual machine in the process space of the system916.

Each user system 912 could include a desktop personal computer,workstation, laptop, PDA, cell phone, or any wireless access protocol(WAP) enabled device or any other computing system capable ofinterfacing directly or indirectly to the Internet or other networkconnection. User system 912 typically runs an HTTP client, e.g., abrowsing program, such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer® browser,Mozilla's Firefox® browser, Opera's browser, or a WAP-enabled browser inthe case of a cell phone, PDA or other wireless device, or the like,allowing a user (e.g., subscriber of the multi-tenant database system)of user system 912 to access, process and view information, pages andapplications available to it from system 916 over network 914.

Each user system 912 also typically includes one or more user interfacedevices, such as a keyboard, a mouse, trackball, touch pad, touchscreen, pen or the like, for interacting with a graphical user interface(GUI) provided by the browser on a display (e.g., a monitor screen, LCDdisplay, etc.) in conjunction with pages, forms, applications and otherinformation provided by system 916 or other systems or servers. Forexample, the user interface device can be used to access data andapplications hosted by system 916, and to perform searches on storeddata, and otherwise allow a user to interact with various GUI pages thatmay be presented to a user. As discussed above, embodiments are suitablefor use with the Internet, which refers to a specific globalinternetwork of networks. However, it should be understood that othernetworks can be used instead of the Internet, such as an intranet, anextranet, a virtual private network (VPN), a non-TCP/IP based network,any LAN or WAN or the like.

According to some embodiments, each user system 912 and all of itscomponents are operator configurable using applications, such as abrowser, including computer code run using a central processing unitsuch as an Intel Pentium® processor or the like. Similarly, system 916(and additional instances of an MTS, where more than one is present) andall of their components might be operator configurable usingapplication(s) including computer code to run using a central processingunit such as processor system 917, which may include an Intel Pentium®processor or the like, and/or multiple processor units.

A computer program product implementation includes a machine-readablestorage medium (media) having instructions stored thereon/in which canbe used to program a computer to perform any of the processes of theembodiments described herein. Computer code for operating andconfiguring system 916 to intercommunicate and to process web pages,applications and other data and media content as described herein arepreferably downloaded and stored on a hard disk, but the entire programcode, or portions thereof, may also be stored in any other volatile ornon-volatile memory medium or device, such as a ROM or RAM, or providedon any media capable of storing program code, such as any type ofrotating media including floppy disks, optical discs, digital versatiledisk (DVD), compact disk (CD), microdrive, and magneto-optical disks,and magnetic or optical cards, nanosystems (including molecular memoryICs), or any type of media or device suitable for storing instructionsand/or data. Additionally, the entire program code, or portions thereof,may be transmitted and downloaded from a software source over atransmission medium, e.g., over the Internet, or from another server, ortransmitted over any other conventional network connection (e.g.,extranet, VPN, LAN, etc.) using any communication medium and protocols(e.g., TCP/IP, HTTP, HTTPS, Ethernet, etc.). It will also be appreciatedthat computer code for implementing embodiments can be implemented inany programming language that can be executed on a client system and/orserver or server system such as, for example, C, C++, HTML, any othermarkup language, Java™, JavaScript®, ActiveX®, any other scriptinglanguage, such as VBScript, and many other programming languages as arewell known may be used. (Java™ is a trademark of Sun Microsystems®,Inc.).

According to some embodiments, each system 916 is configured to provideweb pages, forms, applications, data and media content to user (client)systems 912 to support the access by user systems 912 as tenants ofsystem 916. As such, system 916 provides security mechanisms to keepeach tenant's data separate unless the data is shared. If more than oneMTS is used, they may be located in close proximity to one another(e.g., in a server farm located in a single building or campus), or theymay be distributed at locations remote from one another (e.g., one ormore servers located in city A and one or more servers located in cityB). As used herein, each MTS could include logically and/or physicallyconnected servers distributed locally or across one or more geographiclocations. Additionally, the term “server” is meant to include acomputer system, including processing hardware and process space(s), andan associated storage system and database application (e.g., OODBMS orRDBMS) as is well known in the art.

It should also be understood that “server system” and “server” are oftenused interchangeably herein. Similarly, the database object describedherein can be implemented as single databases, a distributed database, acollection of distributed databases, a database with redundant online oroffline backups or other redundancies, etc., and might include adistributed database or storage network and associated processingintelligence.

FIG. 10 also shows a block diagram of environment 910 furtherillustrating system 916 and various interconnections, in accordance withsome embodiments. FIG. 10 shows that user system 912 may includeprocessor system 912A, memory system 912B, input system 912C, and outputsystem 912D. FIG. 10 shows network 914 and system 916. FIG. 10 alsoshows that system 916 may include tenant data storage 922, tenant data923, system data storage 924, system data 925, User Interface (UI) 1030,Application Program Interface (API) 1032, PL/SOQL 1034, save routines1036, application setup mechanism 1038, applications servers10001-1000N, system process space 1002, tenant process spaces 1004,tenant management process space 1010, tenant storage area 1012, userstorage 1014, and application metadata 1016. In other embodiments,environment 910 may not have the same elements as those listed aboveand/or may have other elements instead of, or in addition to, thoselisted above.

User system 912, network 914, system 916, tenant data storage 922, andsystem data storage 924 were discussed above in FIG. 9. Regarding usersystem 912, processor system 912A may be any combination of processors.Memory system 912B may be any combination of one or more memory devices,short term, and/or long term memory. Input system 912C may be anycombination of input devices, such as keyboards, mice, trackballs,scanners, cameras, and/or interfaces to networks. Output system 912D maybe any combination of output devices, such as monitors, printers, and/orinterfaces to networks. As shown by FIG. 10, system 916 may include anetwork interface 920 (of FIG. 9) implemented as a set of HTTPapplication servers 1000, an application platform 918, tenant datastorage 922, and system data storage 924. Also shown is system processspace 1002, including individual tenant process spaces 1004 and a tenantmanagement process space 1010. Each application server 1000 may beconfigured to tenant data storage 922 and the tenant data 923 therein,and system data storage 924 and the system data 925 therein to serverequests of user systems 912. The tenant data 923 might be divided intoindividual tenant storage areas 1012, which can be either a physicalarrangement and/or a logical arrangement of data. Within each tenantstorage area 1012, user storage 1014 and application metadata 1016 mightbe similarly allocated for each user. For example, a copy of a user'smost recently used (MRU) items might be stored to user storage 1014.Similarly, a copy of MRU items for an entire organization that is atenant might be stored to tenant storage area 1012. A UI 1030 provides auser interface and an API 1032 provides an application programmerinterface to system 916 resident processes to users and/or developers atuser systems 912. The tenant data and the system data may be stored invarious databases, such as Oracle™ databases.

Application platform 918 includes an application setup mechanism 1038that supports application developers' creation and management ofapplications, which may be saved as metadata into tenant data storage922 by save routines 1036 for execution by subscribers as tenant processspaces 1004 managed by tenant management process 1010 for example.Invocations to such applications may be coded using PL/SOQL 34 thatprovides a programming language style interface extension to API 1032. Adetailed description of some PL/SOQL language embodiments is discussedin commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 7,730,478, titled METHOD AND SYSTEMFOR ALLOWING ACCESS TO DEVELOPED APPLICATIONS VIA A MULTI-TENANTON-DEMAND DATABASE SERVICE, by Craig Weissman, filed Sep. 21, 2007,which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety and for allpurposes. Invocations to applications may be detected by systemprocesses, which manage retrieving application metadata 1016 for thesubscriber making the invocation and executing the metadata as anapplication in a virtual machine.

Each application server 1000 may be communicably coupled to databasesystems, e.g., having access to system data 925 and tenant data 923, viaa different network connection. For example, one application server10001 might be coupled via the network 914 (e.g., the Internet), anotherapplication server 1000N-1 might be coupled via a direct network link,and another application server 1000N might be coupled by yet a differentnetwork connection. Transfer Control Protocol and Internet Protocol(TCP/IP) are typical protocols for communicating between applicationservers 1000 and the database system. However, other transport protocolsmay be used to optimize the system depending on the network interconnectused.

In certain embodiments, each application server 1000 is configured tohandle requests for any user associated with any organization that is atenant. Because it is desirable to be able to add and remove applicationservers from the server pool at any time for any reason, there ispreferably no server affinity for a user and/or organization to aspecific application server 1000. In some embodiments, therefore, aninterface system implementing a load balancing function (e.g., an F5Big-IP load balancer) is communicably coupled between the applicationservers 1000 and the user systems 912 to distribute requests to theapplication servers 1000. In some embodiments, the load balancer uses aleast connections algorithm to route user requests to the applicationservers 1000. Other examples of load balancing algorithms, such as roundrobin and observed response time, also can be used. For example, incertain embodiments, three consecutive requests from the same user couldhit three different application servers 1000, and three requests fromdifferent users could hit the same application server 1000. In thismanner, system 916 is multi-tenant, wherein system 916 handles storageof, and access to, different objects, data and applications acrossdisparate users and organizations.

As an example of storage, one tenant might be a company that employs asales force where each call center agent uses system 916 to manage theirsales process. Thus, a user might maintain contact data, leads data,customer follow-up data, performance data, goals and progress data,etc., all applicable to that user's personal sales process (e.g., intenant data storage 922). In an example of a MTS arrangement, since allof the data and the applications to access, view, modify, report,transmit, calculate, etc., can be maintained and accessed by a usersystem having nothing more than network access, the user can manage hisor her sales efforts and cycles from any of many different user systems.For example, if a call center agent is visiting a customer and thecustomer has Internet access in their lobby, the call center agent canobtain critical updates as to that customer while waiting for thecustomer to arrive in the lobby.

While each user's data might be separate from other users' dataregardless of the employers of each user, some data might beorganization-wide data shared or accessible by a plurality of users orall of the users for a given organization that is a tenant. Thus, theremight be some data structures managed by system 916 that are allocatedat the tenant level while other data structures might be managed at theuser level. Because an MTS might support multiple tenants includingpossible competitors, the MTS should have security protocols that keepdata, applications, and application use separate. Also, because manytenants may opt for access to an MTS rather than maintain their ownsystem, redundancy, up-time, and backup are additional functions thatmay be implemented in the MTS. In addition to user-specific data andtenant specific data, system 916 might also maintain system level datausable by multiple tenants or other data. Such system level data mightinclude industry reports, news, postings, and the like that are sharableamong tenants.

In certain embodiments, user systems 912 (which may be clientmachines/systems) communicate with application servers 1000 to requestand update system-level and tenant-level data from system 916 that mayrequire sending one or more queries to tenant data storage 922 and/orsystem data storage 924. System 916 (e.g., an application server 1000 insystem 916) automatically generates one or more SQL statements (e.g.,SQL queries) that are designed to access the desired information. Systemdata storage 924 may generate query plans to access the requested datafrom the database.

Each database can generally be viewed as a collection of objects, suchas a set of logical tables, containing data fitted into predefinedcategories. A “table” is one representation of a data object, and may beused herein to simplify the conceptual description of objects and customobjects according to some embodiments. It should be understood that“table” and “object” may be used interchangeably herein. Each tablegenerally contains one or more data categories logically arranged ascolumns or fields in a viewable schema. Each row or record of a tablecontains an instance of data for each category defined by the fields.For example, a CRM database may include a table that describes acustomer with fields for basic contact information such as name,address, phone number, fax number, etc. Another table might describe apurchase order, including fields for information such as customer,product, sale price, date, etc. In some multi-tenant database systems,standard entity tables might be provided for use by all tenants. For CRMdatabase applications, such standard entities might include tables foraccount, contact, lead, and opportunity data, each containingpre-defined fields. It should be understood that the word “entity” mayalso be used interchangeably herein with “object” and “table”.

In some multi-tenant database systems, tenants may be allowed to createand store custom objects, or they may be allowed to customize standardentities or objects, for example by creating custom fields for standardobjects, including custom index fields. U.S. Pat. No. 7,779,039, titledCUSTOM ENTITIES AND FIELDS IN A MULTI-TENANT DATABASE SYSTEM, byWeissman, et al., and which is hereby incorporated by reference in itsentirety and for all purposes, teaches systems and methods for creatingcustom objects as well as customizing standard objects in a multi-tenantdatabase system. In some embodiments, for example, all custom entitydata rows are stored in a single multi-tenant physical table, which maycontain multiple logical tables per organization. In some embodiments,multiple “tables” for a single customer may actually be stored in onelarge table and/or in the same table as the data of other customers.

These and other aspects of the disclosure may be implemented by varioustypes of hardware, software, firmware, etc. For example, some featuresof the disclosure may be implemented, at least in part, bymachine-readable media that include program instructions, stateinformation, etc., for performing various operations described herein.Examples of program instructions include both machine code, such asproduced by a compiler, and files containing higher-level code that maybe executed by the computer using an interpreter. Examples ofmachine-readable media include, but are not limited to, magnetic mediasuch as hard disks, floppy disks, and magnetic tape; optical media suchas CD-ROM disks; magneto-optical media; and hardware devices that arespecially configured to store and perform program instructions, such asread-only memory devices (“ROM”) and random access memory (“RAM”).

While one or more embodiments and techniques are described withreference to an implementation in which a service cloud console isimplemented in a system having an application server providing a frontend for an on-demand database service capable of supporting multipletenants, the one or more embodiments and techniques are not limited tomulti-tenant databases nor deployment on application servers.Embodiments may be practiced using other database architectures, i.e.,ORACLES, DB2® by IBM and the like without departing from the scope ofthe embodiments claimed.

Any of the above embodiments may be used alone or together with oneanother in any combination. Although various embodiments may have beenmotivated by various deficiencies with the prior art, which may bediscussed or alluded to in one or more places in the specification, theembodiments do not necessarily address any of these deficiencies. Inother words, different embodiments may address different deficienciesthat may be discussed in the specification. Some embodiments may onlypartially address some deficiencies or just one deficiency that may bediscussed in the specification, and some embodiments may not address anyof these deficiencies.

While various embodiments have been described herein, it should beunderstood that they have been presented by way of example only, and notlimitation. Thus, the breadth and scope of the present applicationshould not be limited by any of the embodiments described herein, butshould be defined only in accordance with the following andlater-submitted claims and their equivalents.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A computer-implemented method forprocessing performance summaries of employees, the method comprising:receiving, via a feedback user interface, a selection of supportinginformation for a text portion of a performance summary by a feedbackprovider, the supporting information comprising a phrase selected from atext portion of a source file displayed to the feedback provider;causing, via the feedback user interface, display of the selectedsupporting information in a feedback preview interface concurrentlydisplayed with at least a portion of the source file displayed via thefeedback user interface, the supporting information including feedbackfrom a plurality of sources, the feedback user interface beingconfigurable to automatically enable feedback from the plurality ofsources to be viewable by any feedback provider and block feedback fromthe plurality of sources from being displayed based on a role associatedwith an employee whose performance is being reviewed; receiving, via thefeedback preview interface, a selection from the feedback providerconfirming the selected supporting information displayed in the feedbackpreview interface; causing, via the feedback user interface, a link tobe generated that visually includes text of the supporting informationand provides a path for accessing the source file; causing a performancesummary user interface to be displayed to a user different than thefeedback provider, the performance summary user interface includingconcurrent display of the text portion of the performance summary andthe link; detecting, via the performance summary user interface,selection of the link by the user; and causing, via the performancesummary user interface in response to the link being selected, displayof the supporting information in a pop-up window adjacent to the textportion of the performance summary.
 2. The method of claim 1, whereinthe supporting information includes one or more of textual informationand graphical information.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein each of theplurality of sources being associated with the employee.
 4. The methodof claim 3, wherein the supporting information includes statisticalinformation relating to the employee's work and stored in a database. 5.The method of claim 3, wherein the role of the user includes at leastone of a feedback provider and the employee.
 6. A system for processingperformance summaries, the system comprising: one or more processors;and a non-transitory computer readable medium storing a plurality ofinstructions, which when executed, cause the one or more processors to:receive, via a feedback user interface, a selection of supportinginformation for a text portion of a performance summary by the feedbackprovider, the supporting information comprising a phrase selected from atext portion of a source file displayed to the feedback provider; cause,via the feedback user interface, display of the selected supportinginformation in a feedback preview interface concurrently displayed withat least a portion of the source file displayed via the feedback userinterface, the supporting information including feedback from aplurality of sources, the feedback user interface being configurable toautomatically enable feedback from the plurality of sources to beviewable by any feedback provider and block feedback from the pluralityof sources from being displayed based on a role associated with anemployee whose performance is being reviewed; receive, via the feedbackpreview interface, a selection from the feedback provider confirming theselected supporting information displayed in the feedback previewinterface; cause, via the feedback user interface, a link to begenerated that visually includes text of the supporting information andprovides a path for accessing the source file; cause a performancesummary user interface to be displayed to a user different than thefeedback provider, the performance summary user interface includingconcurrent display of the text portion of the performance summary andthe link; detect, via the performance summary user interface, selectionof the link by the user; and cause, via the performance summary userinterface in response to the phrase link being selected, display of thesupporting information in a pop-up window adjacent to the text portionof the performance summary.
 7. The system of claim 6, wherein thesupporting information includes one or more of textual information andgraphical information.
 8. The system of claim 7, wherein each of theplurality of sources being associated with the employee.
 9. The systemof claim 8, wherein the supporting information includes statisticalinformation relating to the employee's work and stored in a database.10. The system of claim 8, wherein the role of the user includes atleast one of a feedback provider and the employee.
 11. A computerprogram product comprising computer-readable program code to be executedby one or more processors when retrieved from a non-transitorycomputer-readable medium, the program code including instructions to:receive, via a feedback user interface, a selection of supportinginformation for a text portion of a performance summary by the feedbackprovider, the supporting information comprising a phrase selected from atext portion of a source file displayed to the feedback provider; cause,via the feedback user interface, display of the selected supportinginformation in a feedback preview interface concurrently displayed withat least a portion of the source file displayed via the feedback userinterface, the supporting information including feedback from aplurality of sources, the feedback user interface being configurable toautomatically enable feedback from the plurality of sources to beviewable by any feedback provider and block feedback from the pluralityof sources from being displayed based on a role associated with anemployee whose performance is being reviewed; receive, via the feedbackpreview interface, a selection from the feedback provider confirming theselected supporting information displayed in the feedback previewinterface; cause, via the feedback user interface, a link to begenerated that visually includes text of the supporting information andprovides a path for accessing the source file; cause a performancesummary user interface to be displayed to a user different than thefeedback provider, the performance summary user interface includingconcurrent display of the text portion of the performance summary andthe link; detect, via the performance summary user interface, selectionof the link by the user; and cause, via the performance summary userinterface, display of the supporting information in a pop-up windowadjacent to the text portion of the performance summary.
 12. Thecomputer program product of claim 11, wherein the supporting informationincludes one or more of textual information and graphical information.13. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein each of theplurality of sources being associated with the employee.
 14. Thecomputer program product of claim 13, wherein the supporting informationincludes statistical information relating to the employee's work andstored in a database.
 15. The computer program product of claim 13,wherein the role of the user includes at least one of a feedbackprovider and the employee.